New Delhi: A Congress MP today protested against the GST’s provisions on the textile sector by sitting on a dharna outside Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the Parliament complex, hours before the midnight launch of the landmark tax reform.
The Rajya Sabha member from Telangana, Anand Bhaskar Rapolu, alleged that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) would destroy the textile sector which would lead to suicides by workers in the labour-intensive industry.
“Being a weaver by community, I hold responsibility to highlight the grievance of the textile sector. GST destroys handlooms…The GST provisions on textile sector are indirectly promoting dumping of imported fabrics from China.
As a result, the poverty-stricken handloom workers and weavers will face hunger deaths and will commit suicides,” he told reporters outside Parliament.
Rapolu said the handlooms are the cloth providers of the nation and are labour intensive. He also called for treating the raw material for handloom sector with a humanitarian attitude.
His protest came a couple of hours before the midnight launch of GST, considered the biggest tax reform in the country, in the central hall of the Parliament.
—PTI